Mucking Around in Community

I've had a couple of conversations over the past several weeks about small group Bible studies.

For those of you who aren't dwelling in Christian sub-culture land, small group Bible studies basically are groups of 5-15 people who often meet in houses for Bible study, prayer, encouragement, etc. These are usually organized by churches for the purpose of helping people get to know one another and mature in their faith.

One question that swirls around small groups is style. Are these supposed to be studies, with an emphasis on information? Or are these supposed to be more about building relationships?

I don't think that these two are mutually exclusive. But for my money, if I have to choose between a small group leader who will teach a theology class each week or a leader who knows how to build trust and community, I'll take the community person every day of the week.

On Sunday afternoons in the small group that I lead, I'm all about opening up the Bible together and mucking around in it together. I could do a more heady study, but why? The problem that most people have in my circles is not that they don't know enough. The problem is that none of us actually lives responsive-ly and responsibly to the stuff we already know.

That's where community comes in. All of our lives we are shaped and formed by relationships, for better or for worse: family of origin, who you hung out with in high school, what you did in college, marriage and kids. This is how God designed us.

My goal in small group is for lives to be changed, not for people simply to know more stuff. There's a baseline amount of understanding that needs to happen, but real-life, real-time gospel application happens only in the context of a community that helps us to understand: "what the crap does this actually mean for me Monday in cube world or in the classroom or parenting my kids or trying to be married to this imperfect person sitting beside me?"

If you're reading this thing and you're at all interested in discovering real faith, real Christianity that goes beyond ritual or a sub-culture or a social circle or a country club, please find a church that helps you find real community.

If you don't have anyone that you can talk to that will help you to figure out how Jesus speaks into your life when your marriage stinks or you want to drop out of school and join the circus or when you lose your job or when your kids are driving you towards infanticide, then you haven't really begun to live yet.